Desires, lust and stuff!

11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

1 Peter 2:11

The other day I was reading this verse and it just occurred to me how bad sinful desires can be. In this day and age sinful desires like lust are being promoted and are just seen as innocent. But notice it says in this passage that it wages war against our souls!

I think of all these things and its true the more I engage in sinful desires here and there the more distant I feel from God no matter how innocent the world calls it it wages war against my soul and yours too, especially desire for sinful things. So how can we protect our souls? the verses that comes to mind are Ephesians 6:11-18.

We need to be serious about prayer and I need to too because prayer is our communication with God it is what keeps us going and provides us with what we need to stay focused and continue the journey its our ammo. If we pray according to God's will our prayers will be given what we ask for --- yes that's true read it here in 1 John 5:14-15. Our will needs to become God's will else we cannot fully commit to Him or be sure of our salvation.

Jesus loves you and He will be delighted for you to intentionally spend time with Him and give all that you have.

Don't worry trust God he has a plan for you not just everyone else!

Be encouraged

In Christ 

Jaleen :)

In Christ alone

13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Phillipians 4:13

13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

From the verses above, highlighted in bold are the things which show how we owe all of our glory for doing good to God. It is a false idea to think that any of our works are our own doing. As much a you think you are capable of doing good without God you cannot. Yes thats right, it is God who enables us to do good we can do no good without him. You may be thinking I know many people who do good without God but that is not right because the good we do without God is not really good but it has a catch to it or some condition. Likewise we can't truly love without God because God is the only true love. The world's idea of doing good and true love is most distorted. So we need to know God's great works and love and reconnect with Him by his Holy Spirit or else the world's ways will influence us. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus and making use of our most powerful tool we have which is prayer. People may disagree with what we tell them but they cannot dampen our prayers.

Why does God seek His own glory?

But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

Psalm 22:3 KJV

Because God is unique and all glorious and totally self-sufficient, He must be for Himself if He is to be for us. God is without flaw, He is not self-seeking or selfish. On the contrary, He is perfect in every way He humbled and gave Himself as a ransom for us out of pure love and in order for there to be a way for us to be saved (see Acts 4:12).  We have to believe that He is sufficient which He is. So because He is totally sufficient and perfect in every way he deserves all our glory. Our LORD God Almighty is a God of truth and He cannot lie or deny the truth, He is truth and so He must receive all our glory because He is the only source of complete righteousness and truth and the only source of joy. Put it this way if God gave up His glory to another it would not be right because there is no other who can excel Him or can even come near to His love, power, grace, mercy and truth. Because God is love He must pursue the praises and hearts of his people so that He can redeem them because He is truth and the only way he is fully deserving of our praise. So let us give Him all our praise and thank Him for his great love and for everything He has done for us with a thankful heart and instead of thinking why does God seek His own glory we should rather be marveling at the fact that the God of the universe inhabits praise from mere men on earth such as myself!

Be encouraged,

Jaleen x

P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Day 6: Make use of God's Armour

14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:14-17

Every day we need to pray to be clothed with the armor of God so that we can resist any spiritual attack and so we can stand when the day of evil comes. Eph 6:11-13 

But something God was showing me the other day was that when a soldier prepares for battle he clothes himself with armor and he is prepared to fight. However what good is it if he stands against his opposition clothed with all his armor (his shield his sword and the rest) but doesn't use it? We need to use our armor which we have been given. 

Our sword which is our attacking weapon is the word of God which we need to be reading and living by and it is the sharpest sword there is! (see Hebrews 12:4)

Our helmet of salvation and salvation is found in none other except Jesus (see Acts 4:12)

Our belt of truth, we live by the Spirit of truth (see John 3:20-21)

Our feet fitted with the readiness to spread the gospel (see Matt 24:14)

Our shield of faith which is in Christ Jesus (what He has done and is yet going to do in our lives) (see Hebrews 12:2)

Our breastplate of righteousness which is the righteousness we have in Jesus Christ (see Psalm 106:3)

Let us pray,

Lord Almighty, I pray that you would clothe us with your armor, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the belt of truth and our feet with the readiness to spread your Gospel and that you would help us to use your armour to bring Glory to your most Holy name. Please help those of us who are are saved to continue in you and for those who are not saved to come into the knowledge of the savior Jesus and to know that salvation is found in His name only. Help us in our weaknesses to come to you and to remove any hindrances and let us devote ourselves to you. Bind Satan I pray. In Jesus name I pray this prayer, Amen

Be encouraged, 

Jaleen x

P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Day 2 - The worries of tomorrow

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 (NIV)

At times throughout the day I find myself getting so caught up in daily life that I miss out on my quiet time with God and I'm running on the fumes of God's word. Its so easy to worry about all the things that need doing in daily lives and Jesus understands this, He understands how easy it is for us to get caught up in worrying about what we will eat and how much to eat and what it is best to eat and drink and everything that we must do tomorrow and in our human lives and he tells us in Matthew 6:25-34 not to worry. He tells us not to worry about these things because they are not very important and your salvation doesn't depend on what we eat or how healthy or unhealthy we are in what we eat or drink there are more deeper things we should be avoiding like sexual immorality see 1 Corinthians 6:13 You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. You may be thinking but how do I stop worrying its easier said than done! 

The answer is in Phillipians 4:6-7 "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

The way to experience the peace of God is to pray to him he told us to present our requests to him. God is a loving God, he cares about us, he wants us to remain in contact with him which is why he tells us to pray in every situation. Let us therefore draw near to his throne with our prayers and requests not forgetting however to come with thanksgiving for all that He is and has already provided by his amazing grace for us in Christ Jesus. 

Be encouraged, 

Jaleen

P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Day 1 - Heed the warning

 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:9 (NIV)

Recently I was travelling in someone else's car and as we were travelling there were lots of signs and markers to show that there had been a diversion ahead due to roadworks or obstruction to the road but there were many signs and diversion routes that you had to obey to make it to the next clear road and avoid being stuck. I noticed that there was a long queue ahead where people had missed one of the signs and had failed to see the diversion sign and they had become stuck in traffic queues it became quite a mess. It reminded me immediately of a believers walk with Christ and convicted me of my own walk, often there are times where God will show us to do something which may seem small or unimportant to us he gives us warnings and we just ignore them and continue expecting to grow in our walk or for it to have no effect but the more we do this and continue ignoring these "small" things the bigger the consequences become. These things then become harder deal with and we may find ourselves becoming stuck in a bad situation all because we decided that our own way was better. Its time to heed the warning and turn to God, He knows better than what we know of ourselves (Matthew 10:30) and has our best interest at heart. I encourage whoever you may be to let go of your own will and surrender to God in whatever it is God is leading you to.

Pray this with me

"Lord I am fed up of going my own way in life and falling short of you. I just pray that you would forgive me of my sins and help me to walk in your way and for your blessed Spirit to guide me. Help me to surrender my will in all things and take up your will for my life instead of my own. Help me daily to carry my cross and follow you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen."
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Weaknesses

Recently God has really been guiding me to this verse lately so I thought i would share it with you:

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 

When you take time to think about this verse and what it means it truly is amazing. God is saying that His power is made PERFECT in WEAKNESS. Not in strength, not in satisfaction, but he says in weakness. Its so easy to look at ourselves and pick out all our flaws and weaknesses and by doing that you can grow to hate yourself but that is not the purpose of our weaknesses. We have to look at the bigger picture. Our weaknesses are set up to reveal God's power but for this to happen we need to turn away from trying to overcome weaknesses and rely completely on God with them. In 2 Corinthians 12:8 Paul PLEADS with God THREE times to take away a physical weakness which we are not told what it is but we are told that it was a thorn in the flesh so a physical weakness which may have hindered his ministry yet God directed him to verse 9.  Often when we have strengths in areas it can cause us to get tempted to depend on ourselves which hinders our walk with Christ resulting in it being ineffective because we are making ourselves our own foundation when we need it to be about God and not us. If you have a physical weakness in your Chrsitian walk its not given to hinder you but that it can be used by God to reveal his power and to keep your eyes on him and not ourselves which I have also been learning through the reading and studying of these verses.
God bless you all, Jaleen :)
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more

Self Dependence

Hello and welcome to my new blog! 
God has been showing me recently that I don't pray enough in times where I am going through hard situations or temptation I often feel to take the matter into my own hands because I want control, I want to sort out the situation in my own strength and to be independent and then come in prayer and thanksgiving to God afterwards but God has been showing me recently that this approach wrong because its self dependence instead of God dependence and it leads to self praise 2 Corinthians 3:5 (NIV) Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. This means that we, as Christians need to be depending on God instead of ourselves in hard times if we depend on ourselves in hard times we are tempted to claim the glory of being able to depend on ourselves you may be thinking how do I depend on God? One verse that has really come to me during hardship and desire to pursue my own way is Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. We seek the Kingdom of God first by putting our hope in Christ and seeking his word before anything else that means coming to him in prayer and reading before giving thought to any other worldly ideas and pursuits. When Jesus then says in this passage all these things shall be added unto you He is talking about the all of the worries of life. He understands that we will be tempted to worry and he tells us not to in Matthew 6:25-34 He tells us why we should not worry because God is in control of everything so the more we put dependence on our own control the more we will fall into worry. So today instead of pursuing our own solution to life's calamities remember God understands more than anything you even understand about yourself! Please take time to pray about seeking God's will instead of seeking your own will and your own dependence which will only lead you to worry. 
God Bless you all, love in Christ alone
Jaleen 
P.S please check out this post if you want to become a Christian or know more